Obama and his milquetoast banker accommodation and throwing the middle class in the garbage is responsible for Trump and Trumpism in a very direct sense. Obama’s implicit denial of that and seeing him assert dissimulative crap while stumping is just awful.

Obama stood up for what was right to him: the banksters and the rich. From that “brave” stand, we got Trump.

I am really interested in the sociology of how it is possible for organizations like Mozilla to continue to make ridiculously, obviously stupid decisions with full conviction that they are heading the right direction.

How does that happen? It’s not uncommon at all. I pick on Mozilla because I am most familiar with that instance but it’s true across many organizations and times.

Trump is absolutely right that most of what you read in the press is “fake news.”

Don’t have a fainting spell but it is true.

He’s not right about why it is fake news, or what the fake news is for the most part, but he’s not wrong in the general apprehension. Most journalists have little understanding of that on which they report, and furthermore they report what is corporate-friendly almost exclusively. If they do report something that is not approved with a corporate and advertiser stamp (de facto) it’s usually couched in such vague language or equivocation (“Experts say climate change might kill us all, but some guy with a HVAC cert says it might not”) that it doesn’t much matter if the facts are somewhat right. And, you know, they usually aren’t.

Any area where I’m an expert or have significant knowledge, it’s clear to me that most mass media stories are obviously just a complete hilarious hogwash of misused terms, misunderstood claims, and with no technical grounding at all.

So I know centrists and liberals will hate to hear this, but yes, even most of your prized outlets are chock full of corporate-approved propaganda, outright ridiculous lies (Iraq has WMDs!) and state- and corporate-backed propaganda efforts.

Did 5@225 this morn on the deadlift. Don’t feel confident yet going above 225, but I am definitely getting stronger as I could barely pull one the other day and I did 5 fairly easily today.

I really like the deadlift. If I could do only one exercise it’d be that one. It’s difficult, works the most muscles, and really makes you stronger all over quickly.

I know it’s not stylish or trendy to say it, but I don’t give a crap about the midterm election. It won’t make any real difference to anything. The Democrats aren’t as bad the Republican thugs and fascists, but they will also do absolutely nothing about climate change or even fighting against the Repubs, so what does it matter?

Vote for whatever batch of corporate lackeys and toadies who don’t care if you die, yay! What’s the point?

It does not console me, as it does many of those centrists who vote for Dems, that the Democrats will pretend to act sad and the Republicans will gloat. Either way, I am still dead. I don’t give a fuck.

America’s problems are far beyond political solutions at this point. Increasing chaos is our fate no matter who holds office.

This sort of thing is extremely bad for women.

Days before Meghan Markle announced her engagement to the world, Hugh Heckman saw a picture of the now-Duchess and in a “low voice” dubbed her “Not bad.”

His female co-workers reportedly chastised the writer for his words, asking “Haven’t you learned?” and reminding him of a recent company-wide sexual harassment seminar.

Meanwhile, women are allowed to describe Justin Trudeau as “hot” with no consequences.

Heckman alleges he wasn’t the first PBS employee guilty of newsroom thirstiness, citing the fact that female employees had previously referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “hot.”

It will absolutely not be a winning strategy for women to portray themselves as creatures of supreme fragility and sensitivity so tenuously-constructed they shatter at a mere word. Who would want to hire someone like that on purpose? No one. No one at all.

Lionel Shriver describes the stakes better than I could.

That awful expression ‘rape culture’ puts penetration at knifepoint and unwanted knee-touching under the same indiscriminate umbrella. Such zero-tolerance levelling is not in women’s long-term interest. It portrays us as hypersensitive if not hysterical, dangerous to consort with and lacking in common sense. Democrats’ pumping up of Ford’s moderately unpleasant story into a tear-inducing tragedy reinforces the worst of stereotypes: that we women are little birds so terrifyingly delicate that a mere brush against adversity leaves us broken-winged for life.

I ain’t no little bird.

I don’t really have any objection to the term “rape culture” in an academic setting, but women are unspeakably harming themselves by being unable to make distinctions — and arguing no distinctions should be made — between one innocuous comment and coercive rape.

Kate Miller-Heidke has the distinction of writing both my favorite story song (“Sarah”) and my favorite romantic song — the one below.

I love the little grace notes she’s added that do not appear on the album version. Most singers simplify their songs as compared to the studio version as they can’t reliably hit all the notes live that they hit in the studio (even absent autotune). Well, Kate does the opposite — she makes her live songs more complex and more difficult than her studio versions. She just has such vocal control.